a collection of words about God and life and art and baseball and football and hope and my family and my ministry and music and the immense joy in each moment of all of it. it's a record of being human. welcome.

Search This Blog

a very merry (and magical) christmas to you!

as many of you know, we try to do something different and interesting for our family christmas card every year (we've done i-spy's, it's a wonderful life, an old time circus, and superheroes, just to name a few). this year we decided to try our hand at harry potter, since i've been reading the books to the kids out loud before bed at night.

so, from our home to yours, we hope your christmas is happy, magical, and full of wild wonder at the absurdity of a God who would enter into our story, our messes, our muted colors and lonely bethlehem nights. there is magic in the mundane, mystery in the manger, if you will dare to believe it.

Get link

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Email

Other Apps

Labels

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

here's the thing...i feel like the world needs more affirmation and encouragement. the world needs more positivity, more joy, more love. and while i can't change "the world," i can change the way i act and the things i do. so i have decided to start telling people how awesome they are. and i think it is important to do some of that in a public way. so, here is a (slightly edited) letter i sent to our sons' elementary school principal. he is awesome. i hope it inspires you to tell someone how awesome they are, too. and be awesome, yourself.

Mr. Feldman,

I wanted to send you a quick note just to offer some affirmation, gratitude, and maybe even encouragement. I believe that SCASD is a great school district, but I also know that being in public education can be a tough gig these days. I admire teachers and administrators, especially when they do their job as a vocation, with passion and conviction. This I see in you. I will name three things I have per…

so here's the thing: i call myself a Christian. actually, i don't even use that word as much anymore, because it ends up being a wedge between me and many other people as soon as i use it. instead, i like to say that i'm a Christ-follower (which is closer to the way the very first Christ-followers talked about it anyway). to be a Christ-follower is to - wait for it - follow Christ. i know, surprising, right?

well, it shouldn't be a shock to us that being a Christ-follower, or a Christian, means following Christ, but in America in 2018 calling yourself a Christian often has far too little to do with actually following Jesus. when people call themselves Christians in america today, they may mean any number of things, such as:
-i went to a church sometimes when i grew up;
-i once got 'saved' at a christian camp or crusade;
-i believe in God;
-i am in favor of traditional american evangelical political positions;
-i say merry christmas instead of happy holid…

my friends, this unparalleled woman is celebrating a birthday today, and i cannot help but stop and say thanks that she was born. every once in a while i imagine my life without her, and it is a dark and grim vision. in this vision, there are no children living in my house, no voices singing opera from the shower, no kids books strewn across the living room. in this vision, i eat spaghetti-o's from a can for dinner every night, and i am stuck in every rut i've ever gotten into. in this terrifying vision the color of everything is gray, music sounds like a monotonous drone, and everything feels like long, cold nights.

but she was born!

and somehow our paths were blessed to cross, and somehow i was able to convince her that spending her life with me wouldn't be as awful as it might have seemed, and somehow these last 19 years feel like the blink of an eye; like a colorful, melodic, sun-drenched, joy-filled, broken-but-blessed blink-of-an-eye journey. all because on th…